So, was EA's spin on the traffic fixes just hot air? I'm having the same, if not worse problems this week than I had in the last. Seriously, why say something is going to be fixed when it's clearly not?
I've attached some images to show you traffic problems during disasters. Keep in mind this is called Simcity.... SIM... Why the f*ck can't these firetrucks overtake? WHY is this something that hasn't been patched yet? My entire neighbourhood is burning down because of this.
Your DLCs and future releases can go straight to hell. Weeks after release, this is 100% unacceptable. My loss, but yours too. Good luck remaining profitable.
I also realise that this isn't the offical Simcity portal, but I feel that placing bug reports at this late stage will get as much done as ranting and raging on here will.

I've heard (or made up in my own head) that building a road through or near the offending wheelbarrows/sheds/empty space will reset the land. Although sometimes I'm not even able to build a road through the phantom building(s) at all either.

Plopping tourist attractions are a good start - maybe try an Expo Centre to draw in the initial crowds, then provide clear transportation to your casino district. Make sure you have enough lodging for your tourists once these numbers start to rise. You could also consider plopping an airport and passenger terminal.
Also on traffic, make sure your roads aren't jammed up for miles around your casinos (should be fixed in a new patch soon).

EAs shareprice has actually tanked in recent years, so I can't imagine the shareholders are all that happy.
I guess anything is possible in regards to future communications. While I don't think EA will ever become a team player, or become one with the modding community in any significant relationship, I similarly don't think they'll pull the pin entirely and start calling in lawyers. Shutting down all communications between corporate and end user doesn't deal with the problem, it just creates more. It also doesn't sell games. In the age of social networking, consumers don't simply want to be lectured to, or pitched to with open ears and a closed mouth. They want open dialogue with the developers and publishers, as has been painfully evident from the start of this trainwreck.
City journals, screenshots etc, when shared in a positive light (as most are) ultimately benefit EA. It's free publicity. Even better - it's publicity that the author has paid for out of their own pocket, by buying the game in the first place.
Mods is a different kettle of fish, in my opinion. DLC is the fetish of now. What would Sims 2 or Sims 3 be without their expansion packs? EA can potentially make more money per consumer in Simcity 2013 expansion packs than they would have with the base game, it's a proven model. EA may see mods as a threat, especially if they eclipse the in-house work that they're doing.
Steve Jobs had the right idea with the App Store on iOS devices - rather than feel the burn of indie developers and their applications, he gave them the opportunity to make a profit from their creations - with a cut going to Apple. There's no reason why EA couldn't develop a similar store, offering modders the chance to publish their works and turn a real profit at the same time, with a cut going towards EA. This makes everyone happy, and in my opinion, it would coax some truly great modifications out of this community. And all the while, EA can continue publishing their own megapacks at $20 a pop. But as I stated above, this doesn't seem likely.

Just off topic first - do we really need to be quoting in our replies like this? The same Youtube clip is now spammed three times on this thread and it doesn't even have a dozen replies yet (edit... 14 replies to be exact, I can't count). Seems to be happening on a lot of forums lately too.
Anyway. This is quickly becoming an unbeatable mess for EA, even with their millions. Most likely the banned customers have refunded through their credit card company, which obviously causes headaches for EA. Headaches that could have been avoided if their refund policy had been more clear, let alone appropriate. Like a previous poster said earlier, consumers in Australia have inherent rights to refund purchases on defective merchandise. If EA refuse to give refunds, then this is simply what happens. It's a textbook lesson for EA, and other publishers out there.
While these Reddit posts do raise a few red flags, they're still just Reddit posts. If EA have used marketing spin to promote Simcity, it's just as likely that nameless, faceless individuals will spin their woe-is-me tales to rally support. It's also just as likely that a week-old EA coordinator has ticked the wrong boxes on their computer terminal and disabled accounts that shouldn't have been disabled. It's a hassle, and I won't deny that I would be utterly furious if this happened to me, but it's not unsolvable.
One resolution would be that, if the customer actually hasn't used chargeback up to this point, they certainly should now. Perhaps this is what EA wants to happen in this grand orchestra but it would be an adequate solution to inadequate customer support.

I found thes reviews online that chronicle some of the issues that reviewers and players alike are having with their SimCity game. Quoted below:
"the preview code we've been playing has been keen on crashing with irritating regularity, and when it isn't asking whether or not we'd like to quit due to the game's instability, it fluctuates between frame rates of seven to seventy-five."
"it's hard not to think of the game as an expansion pack with some pretty new models and spangly graphical effects"
"And speaking of glitches, I ran into a bug while saving files. If I quit the game and selected the "Yes, Iwant to save my city" option, I was never able to open those files again, leaving my poor cities of St. Liu-y and Freakmont to languish in the ghetto of file corruption"
Link here and here
Yes - these are reviews for SimCity 4. I thought some perspective would be appropriate, amongst all the Simcity 2013 bashing. Legitimate complaints aside, frustration seems to still be boiling over from the initial server problems that plagued the release. Since then, my Simcity 2013 game has been running fantastically. No crashes, no lost cities.
But even if these things were present in my game, it wouldn't be the first time. I sought out these reviews as I remember, clearly, the initial problems with Simcity 4's financial model, income fluctuations and the extreme difficulty - not to mention that the graphics were behind the time, but still heavy on system resources. It was utterly riddled with bugs which were all patched. The community over the past ten years has done a great deal to further optimise the game, but only relying on the official Maxis patches, I was quite satisfied with my SimCity 4 game in the long term.
If I had any message, it would be that a measure of patience might be appropriate - the many bugs that are being repoted to Maxis currently will most likely be removed in future patches. It's already been patched six times (I think?) since release, mostly major downloads. While Simcity 4 seems to be the benchmark for expectations at the moment, it started off as a messy, buggy, resource hungry monster that mirrors many of the same issues that are present in Simcity 2013.

Don't get me wrong - server issues absolutely need to be fixed, but this is something that EA really only has control over, in every respect (legally, morally, ... whateverally). And while I'm curious about such a mod, like others have said above, your ideas would be considered an exploit, not a mod. Even if your intentions were good, others could take the work and make derivatives that did circumvent cheat/pirating measures.
Also from a practical POV, this sounds incredibly difficult to pull off code wise. It's not a simple job. Don't want to put you off if this is something you're going to try for. But be prepared for EA to immediately patch the base game to disable any mods like this (and possibly kick you off Origin for good, if they knew who you were).
While now is not the time for such modifications, I can see this becoming an important step 3-5 years down the road. I believe that EA/Maxis will eventually release a final patch, enabling an offline mode to continue playing the game after the servers are unprofitable. But if they don't, it'll take talented dedicated coders to make offline games a reality. Maybe then, it'll be a better time for such a modification

Hi everyone,
I'm having trouble getting my avatar from Origin to show up in-game. It uploads and shows fine in Origin chat windows but not anywhere in Simcity, it's just the shadow of a blue man instead. Is there something I'm missing?
Cheers
EDIT: If a mod wants to move this to the technical problems forum please do so, should have done that myself. Thankyou.

Isn't the whole point of an arcology to be self sustainable? (In real life, I mean). It should really be completely independent of power, water, or any other resource for that matter once it's been constructed, especially after the effort that goes into just getting it constructed. But I suppose they're meant to be more than a side project, so the difficulty needs to be extremely high.
Wonder if they launch.

I've had this bug too, it seemed to just 'happen' during a session. I'll be back in my city tonight to check if they're fixed after a reset or whether it's permanent! Very had to tell what the mission is with all that text garbage.